Lies, damned lies and Theresa May
Don’t condemn Britain to five more years of Tory broken promises
FOR seven weeks now Theresa May has trotted out her “strong and stable” mantra like a broken record in a bid to con voters into believing she is the one to lead Britain.
But the PM has exposed herself as weak and wobbly almost every time she opens her mouth.
Her joyless manifesto offered no hope to millions of ordinary people but plenty in the way of tax breaks to tycoons who bankroll the Tories.
That is in stark contrast to Jeremy Corbyn’s pledge of fairness for all. And Mrs May, who did not even have the guts for a public showdown with the Labour leader, has run a campaign riddle with U-turns, lies and broken promises. As Labour’s Yvette Cooper puts it: “You can’t believe a single word she says.” These lies prove why:
ON THE GENERAL ELECTION
THE LIE:
Seven times since becoming PM Mrs May promised she would not call a snap election. “It’s right that the next general election is in 2020,” she said. “It’s about what is right for the country. I think an early general election would introduce a note of instability for people.” THE REALITY:
It’s polling day. As polls showed the Tories opening up a 20-point lead over Labour, the PM suddenly announced she had changed her mind and called one.
ON LIVING STANDARDS
THE LIE: “The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of a privileged few, but by the interests of ordinary, working-class families,” Theresa May told the Tory Party conference last year. Aides promised her focus would be helping families who are “just about managing”. THE REALITY:
By 2021 real wages will still be below their 2008 level, experts say – meaning more than a decade without any real growth in earnings. Yet Mrs May is still pressing ahead with brutal cuts to in-work benefits that mean many working families will lose up to £2,600-a-year.
ON IMMIGRATION
THE LIE: “We will cut net migration to the tens of thousands,” the Tory manifesto promised in 2010, and in 2015, and again last month. As Home Secretary for six years and now as PM, this was Mrs May’s flagship pledge to the voters. THE REALITY:
She has broken the promise every single year. In fact she has never even come close to meeting her target. By December 2016 net migration had reached more than three times the level she promised, at 335,000 people a year. More than half came from outside of the EU, the part the Government can actively control.
ON SOCIAL CARE
THE LIE: “Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed,” the PM told a press conference of incredulous journalists last month after rewriting her botched election manifesto. THE REALITY:
For the first time in living memory a party leader had U-turned on her own manifesto before an election. Only days earlier Tory aides made clear the PM was ditching plans for a cap on the total amount people would have to spend on their social care. After days of bad headlines she buckled and rewrote her flagship policy – and then claimed she hadn’t.
ON NHS SERVICES
THE LIE: “This is not unusual,” Theresa May said in January as the health service suffered its worst winter crisis in years. “There are always extra pressures for the NHS over the winter period.” THE REALITY:
The Red Cross warned of a “humanitarian crisis” as the NHS went into meltdown throughout the winter months.
The NHS is desperately under-resourced, under-staffed and key targets are being missed month after month. Following years of Tory cuts the A&E four-hour target has not been met since July 2015; the 18-week referral to treatment target has not been met since February 2016; the 62-day cancer waiting standard has not been met since December 2015; and the standard for the most urgent ambulance response times has not been met since May 2015.
ON NHS FUNDING
THE LIE: “We asked the NHS to set out what it needed over the next five years,” Mrs May said in January. “We gave them that funding, in fact we gave them more.” THE REALITY:
Within days the independent head of the NHS, Simon Stevens, confirmed this was hogwash. “Like probably every part of the public service we got less than we asked for,” he said. “It would be stretching it to say the NHS has got more than it asked for.”
NHS trusts now have huge and growing deficits, and NHS Providers said this year: “The NHS can no longer deliver what the NHS constitution requires of it. We fear that patient safety is increasingly at risk.”
ON SCHOOLS
THE LIE: “We have protected the schools budget,” Mrs May told MPs in March amid
warnings of a massive and damaging cash shortage in education. “We are seeing record levels of funding going into our schools.” THE REALITY:
Every school faces cuts of 6.5% per pupil, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says. Across the country head teachers are sacking staff and writing begging letters to parents to help fund everything from pens to new whiteboards for classrooms.
And now Mrs May is axing free school dinners for young children to help plug part of the funding gap.
ON THE DEFICIT
THE LIE: The Tories were elected in 2010, along with the Lib Dems, with a promise to end the deficit by 2015. Then they were re-elected with a pledge to run a surplus by 2017. THE REALITY: Britain is still borrowing more than £50billion every
year and Theresa May now says it could be 2025 or beyond before the deficit is finally abolished.
Meanwhile the national debt is on course to soar to £2trillion by the end of the decade.
ON TAX
THE LIE: “Between May 2015 and May 2020 there will be no increases in income tax rates, VAT or National Insurance,” the Tories promised.
THE REALITY: Within months of becoming PM, Mrs May announced plans to hike National Insurance for millions of self-employed workers.
After initially defending the plan despite a massive public backlash, she was eventually forced into a U-turn a week later. But she is now refusing to repeat the “tax lock” pledge at this election – raising fears the NI hike will be revived.
ON WORKERS’ RIGHTS
THE LIE:
“Our plans will be the greatest expansion in workers’ rights by any Conservative government in history,” Mrs May promised last
month as she launched a naked bid to steal Labour voters. THE REALITY:
It emerged the year off work Mrs May is offering people to care for sick relatives will be completely unpaid – putting it out of reach for most ordinary working folk.
And the Tories raised employment tribunal fees so high that staff no longer feel able to enforce the rights they do have. Meanwhile her own voting record shows she has backed countless draconian attacks on workers’ rights including the 2014 Trade Union Act.
ON BREXIT
THE LIE:
“The case to remain in the EU is strong,” Mrs May said as she campaigned for Remain in the referendum. A year earlier she had been elected on a promise to keep us in the lucrative single market. THE REALITY: After losing the referendum she flipped, vowing to pull us out of the single market
It would be stretching it to say the NHS has got more than it asked for SIMON STEVENS NHS CHIEF ON ANOTHER OF MAY’S MANY LIES
and telling voters they should celebrate Brexit as an “enormous opportunity” for Britain.
ON POLICE NUMBERS
THE LIE:
“The police are well-resourced,” Mrs May claimed this week after Britain’s third terror attack in three months. “We have protected counter-terrorism policing budgets, we have funded an uplift in the number of armed officers.” THE REALITY:
Mrs May has axed more than 20,000 officers since 2010. Police chiefs agree we are now less safe. The cuts included more than 1,000 armed police. The PM scrambled to recruit more after the Paris attack in 2015, but the total still remains way below what it was in 2010.
The Tories also axed 40% of police community support officers who acted as “eyes and ears” and spotted would-be terrorists long before they acted. And they have axed 10,000 firefighters who provide a vital rescue service.